As much as Bashir is a smug asshole about everything, he's been very consistent with three things: He wants to win, he prefers friendtank to peepeepoopoo tank, and he won't do anything Haram.
And he's kinda just right about basically everything he says. If he's a real Muslim, like he claims to be, then he's not going to eat pork-gelatin to win some candy. If production doesn't want a Muslim on the show, they could have not cast him, they could have not brought him back, and they can eliminate him at any time with an elimination bacon-eating challenge. Of course, if they do, then there's noone left for James to fight, Bashir gets to leave knowing that the game was rigged against him and he went as far as he could.
For the first assault on Drake's fort, production said no more friendtank and they have to be hostile, but there was no motivation or goal. The only thing left is fighting for no reason, and letting the tank degenerate as far as possible. Rather than trying to stretch out over the end of the season, with people mostly just sitting in their rooms by themselves defending against attackers that don't exist, Bashir decided to go at them with 10/10 force while complaining that the game is stupid and makes no sense, and pointing out that if his luggage is already gone and he already got piss thrown in his face, there's nothing left for peepeepoopoo tank to escalate to. What's Frank going to do? Can't fuck with his luggage, can't make him leave with piss, there's nothing left to do. Either production ends the fight or it just continues to be peepeepoopoo tank for the rest of the show.
Production ended the assault both times, so Bashir did win both times by forcing their hands. Making the enemy fort inhospitable is a goal in and of itself, if they had to clean it, but production interfered by making the 'losing team' clean it up instead (which means Bashir wins again, production would rather watch Landon clean than watch people fight, something that he explicitly pointed out).
Strategywise, if the people who want peepeepoopoo tank get their way, final two are Beshir vs Drake, and the earlier Drake is eliminated the earlier peepeepoopoo tank is over. It's in everyone else's best interest to help Bashir get rid of Drake next, so that the tank can revert to friend tank where Twins and Landon have an actual chance at winning. People are calling this "manipulation," but it's a legitimate strategy that's mutually beneficial to all parties he's trying to manipulate. If you're not okay with that, then you want there to be no social game aspect.
And as far as friendtank vs hellhouse goes, if we accept that production is ultimately responsible for who gets eliminated, then they secretly agree that friendtank is the correct way to play the game, even if they're not self-aware enough to know it: Josie won the first season by being least hostile and attracting the most simps (who I assume are mostly not just perverts because she's not even attractive, but I suppose I could be wrong), TJ won season 2 basically because he was friends with Shinji and they teamed up against Tay, then Shinji was too friendly to aim for the ribs, Burt won season 3 because he was the most autistic, not because he was strongest or best at throwing poo. Even if you take into account Frank, Frank's two best moments were with Fatty on season 1 and Furt on season 3, neither of which were throwing food or destroying luggage.
And it's super frustrating that Bashir keeps talking about how he's the primary target all season and James is being coddled, because the complaining is super gay, but it's hard to argue with when Mints has been responsible for the majority of the season. The only other person getting hate anywhere the same level from production via TTS has been JD, meanwhile friendly TTS to James is free.
I think that Bashir is pointing out a core flaw with the show, in that both production and fans forget what they want half way through the season.
If you fill the house with normies, or relative normies, that don't know what the show is, peepeepoopoo tank is interesting because you're getting to see the normies react to it and crash out over it, and you get to root for the strongest normie to survive hellhouse. Adding autistics to that is interesting for the social aspect where the normies have to deal with people who are literally incapable of behaving like a normie, but it's ultimately a test of "how far will you degrade yourself to win." But when they set something up like that in season 3, half the normies left at the first sign of danger, which should have been entirely expected, but everyone got pissy about it and they decided to do fan casts again the next season.
Which is fine, but if everyone is a fan, they all know they're walking into Frank Hassle at some point and are fine with it anyway, which means that there's really no point in peepeepoopoo house between the fish anymore once you get rid of the weakest most retarded fish. The fans can all band together as Friendtank and try to resist the freeloaders and possibly production, who are trying to turn it into hellhouse. That's entertaining right up until production gets butthurt about the fish shit-talking them and kicks Jin, or just comes up and tells the fish that they're boring and need to be hostile like in season 2 and now season 4. The other thing about fan-tank or friend-tank is that everyone is going to instinctively protect the fish they like the most, that they feel like should win, which in this case is the Twins and originally was Josie. With a mix of autistics and normies you're going to get the same thing, where the normies don't want to be hostile towards the most innocent fish and the autistics don't want to be hostile towards the most autistic fish.
If they want to do a mix of the two, the hostility needs to be organic, which means that the problem is not "friendtank," the problem is "coddletank." Get rid of the "vibe repair" days and let the weaker fish get pissed and hostile until they get rid of the non-friend, and they can replace them with Lauras and Fatties and Franks.
